Lenovo Ideapad 100sLenovo has pushed out another device that could spell trouble for the Chrome OS camp. This time it’s the Lenovo Ideapad 100s, which Best Buy is currently retailing at $199.99. “Essentially,” said Engadget, “it’s the closest thing to the Windows equivalent of a Chromebook.”

The device’s specs  are hardly inspiring, but good enough. It has a 1366 x 768 HD screen, an “entry-level quad-core” Intel Atom Z3735F processor, 2GB RAM, 32GB eMMC flash storage, and two USB ports, as well as an HDMI port and a microSD slot. That should be enough for basic undemanding productivity tasks, as well, of course, as for e-reading, for anyone who is going to read on their laptop at times.

And, needless to say, it has full Windows 10 on board, with full access to the Windows Store. And that ought to give most pause to Chromebook proponents or fans. Because the Chrome OS’s web-based limitations are most acceptable when they allow for a much cheaper device than regular laptops. But with Windows laptops from the most significant manufacturers now down to Chromebook prices, with similar specs, where will be the incentive to compromise? I might well invest in an Ideapad 100s myself: it certainly seems worth the modest outlay.

1 COMMENT

  1. There have been $200 windows laptops with similar specs for at least year now (most famously the HP stream). They haven’t destroyed chromebooks yet, and I expect I won’t. The reason is simple, every one of these systems is limited to 2GB of memory. Microsoft may have done a lot to shrink Windows 10 down, but it is still going to have a larger memory footprint than Chrome. Even in ChromeOS, 2GB is barely considered adequate if you like to keep more than a few tabs open at a single time.

    For a similar price there a several chromebooks you can get for around $200 that also have 4 GB of memory. This will provide a much better experience in the long run.

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